


Final Score

by bree_black



Category: Fast Five (2011), Fast and the Furious Series, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Crimes & Criminals, Inspired by a Movie, M/M, Magic, Polyamory, Transformation, Unrelated Winchesters, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-08
Updated: 2012-07-08
Packaged: 2017-11-09 10:03:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/454250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bree_black/pseuds/bree_black
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam Winchester races magically enhanced cars and heads up a crime ring. His adoptive brother Cas is - probably- an angel. Dean Campbell is the undercover police officer sent in to take them down, who ends up becoming one of the family instead. On the run and under pressure, they decide to take on one last job - a final score.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Final Score

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the SPN_Cinema challenge, with _Fast Five_ as prompt and loose inspiration. Familiarity with the Fast and the Furious series helpful, but not strictly required.
> 
> Note that Sam and Dean are not related in this fic, so it is incest-free.

It almost feels like Dean’s entire life has been leading up to this one moment, racing through the streets with Sam, enormous bank vault chained between them. That’s a ridiculous thing to think, but there it is. It’s been a long journey, anyway, and the sound of their tires squealing before they finally build up enough power to get the thing moving is like music to Dean’s ears. What they’re about to do is, well, fucking _impossible_ , but he and Sam have never let that stop them before. It’s almost like every other race they’ve run, every single time Dean’s lost, has been practice for this, except now they’re finally--unquestionably--on the same side.

 

_It hadn’t been like that at first, of course. When he’d first met Sam Winchester, Dean had been working for the Angels, the nickname the police force assigned to themselves. At the time it had seemed fitting; Dean had joined up because he’d wanted to protect people from harm, because he’d wanted to do some good in the world. He’d been more than happy to go undercover and infiltrate the city’s criminal underbelly – the Demons, the cops liked to say with a chuckle – in search of a gang who’d been hijacking trucks of hoodoo salt and holy water. He’d thought that was how he’d be able to make a difference. Turns out it was total bullshit, but Dean didn’t know that then._

 

Anyway, he’s definitely no Angel now, dragging a vault stolen right out of police headquarters through a dimly lit parking garage, with the help of the man he’d been sent in to take down, years ago. Sam looks over at Dean and nods, letting Dean know he’s okay to speed up, to really get this thing moving. It kind of blows Dean’s mind how different his life would be if he hadn’t been assigned to the Winchester case. Not that it was just Sam who turned dependable Officer Campbell to the dark side, not by a long shot. 

 

_Sam Winchester and his rag-tag group of suspected criminals ran a supernatural garage with attached diner on the outskirts of the city, and Dean’s first order of business was to scope things out, to find his way in to the close-knit group. He got a job with one of the local magicians, just moving inventory before and after the guy did his mojo on the stuff, and he planned to eat lunch at Winchester’s Diner every day as reconnaissance. What he didn’t plan on was Cas._

_Cas ran the diner pretty much single-handedly during the day, and unlike the rest of Winchester’s crew, he had a squeaky clean record. He also had blue eyes that seemed like they could stare straight into Dean’s soul, lips that made his mouth go dry, and the strange ability to never get his apron dirty._

_“Let me guess…the tuna?” He asked with a smirk, on the third consecutive lunch. He leaned against the counter as he said it, and a sliver of skin was visible at his hip, between his pristine white t-shirt and faded blue jeans. Dean’s mouth watered, and it sure wasn’t because he was anticipating the food._

_And so instead of the first meeting he’d carefully planned, Dean ended up coming face to face with Sam Winchester for the first time when Sam pressed him against the hood of Dean’s ’67 Impala, and warned him to stay the fuck away from his baby brother, before punching him so hard it had Dean spitting blood for days._

 

All in all, it wasn’t the worst way things could have started. His relationship with Sam has always been antagonistic, and Dean kind of likes it that way. He suspects Sam likes it too, if only because he’s won every single race they’ve ever run. As they take their first turn, perfectly synchronized or else they’ll bash the shit out of the fancy restaurant on the corner with ten million bucks worth of force, it kind of sends a chill down Dean’s spine. He glances over at Sam, driving parallel to Dean’s Impala in his Charger, and sees Sam grinning back. They have communication charms in their respective vehicles, but they don’t often need to use them.

 

_Anyway, between Cas and Sam, Dean was pretty much screwed from the beginning. He wasn’t the only one, though. Sam Winchester was like gravity, he just pulled everyone to him. The people around him claimed to be a team, not a gang, but privately Dean always thought of them as family. And after one convenient – and also spontaneous – rescue, they adopted Dean as one of their own._

_Of course, as the new guy he was pretty low on the totem pole. Sam was patriarch of course, and his childhood sweetheart - Jess - had him wrapped around her little finger. Dean had been startled to see them together; it was his first indication that Sam’s criminal motivation was something other than greed, was actually all about love, and loyalty, and providing for his own. It became surprisingly easy to reconcile the man who had nearly beaten another guy to death five years ago with the one who gave his girlfriend a foot massage before bed every night._

_Next there was Cas, who wasn’t technically Sam’s brother, but might as well have been. Sam loved to tell the story of how his dad had found Cas on their doorstep, nestled into a basket and wrapped in pink blankets. That explained the girly name, of course. From anyone else it might have been an insult, but when Sam put his hand on Cas’ shoulder afterwards, there was no mistaking the pride there. Rounding out the crew were a half-demon named Ruby who always wore a hat to cover her horns--except when she was trying to scare the shit out of you, a nerdy kid barely out of high school named Ash who was a complete failure at social interaction but a whiz with engines and spellwork, and Gordon, who hated Dean on sight, probably because of his longstanding thing for Cas. The six of them took on the world and the Angels, and Dean made seven. A lucky number._

 

The cops are definitely on to them now. Dean can see their cars pulling in line behind the vault, sirens blaring. There are white chalk lines drawn hastily on the black cars, all around the golden crest with white wings that represents the Angels. They've added speed and protection charms to the cars, then. There was a time when hoodoo, spellwork and the variety of charms and potions the underground racing world uses were considered below the cops, but recently they'd decided to start fighting fire with fire.

Nobody is as good as Sam Winchester with charms, though, and Dean’s right behind him. There are twice as many white lines on the surface of Dean's Impala as on any one of the cop cars, and his are drawn with three times the precision. Not to mention the tank of holy water at his side. With the press of a button Dean can release it into his hellfire-powered engine, and that’ll cause quite the reaction. Ash, when he'd been alive, had never shut up about this particular invention.

 

 _Dean had a lot of learning to do after starting work with Winchester and his gang. The Angels had reluctantly employed witches and magicians to juice up their cars for special occasions, but the cops themselves never touched the stuff. At first Dean thought it was because over half the forces was composed of_ literal _angels who didn't want to mess with black magic, but it became quickly apparent that most of them just didn't have the brains for magic that didn’t come to them naturally. So when he arrived Dean could drive with the best of them and take apart and reassemble an engine in a matter of hours, but he didn't know shit about hoodoo or Enochian symbology, a weakness Sam and his crew made sure to point out at every opportunity._

_"I don't get it. How could you have boosted cars for so long and not even know a simple acceleration charm?" Cas asked over dinner, at this cutesy Cuban place Cas had pointedly asked Dean to take him to, instead of Gordon. "I could draw those with my eyes closed by the time I was six."_

_"We didn't all have your upbringing," Dean said with a grin, even as his stomach twisted with guilt over the deception. "My folks were religious."_

_Cas smirked at that, leaning forward to whisper conspiratorially across the table. "Oh yeah? Did they think there were angels watching over them?"_

_Dean stared back over the table at Cas, and tried not to shiver as a chill ran down his spine. "Something like that," he said._

 

"Hey Campbell, keep your eyes on the road." Sam's voice echoes through the car, emanating from the chunk of quartz fixed firmly to the Impala's dash. At the very last moment, Dean swerves out of the way of a semi-truck turning out of a fast food restaurant parking lot.

"I got it, I got it," Dean mutters. He jerks suddenly to the right, and the cop car tailing him doesn’t compensate in time, smashing into a series of metal trash cans on the curb. As it skids across the sidewalk before finally coming to a halt, Dean raises an eyebrow at Sam.

"Very impressive," Sam admits.

"If you gentleman could keep your - I know, enormous - dicks in your pants for the next five minutes, that would be great," says Cas, and Dean nearly jumps out of his skin, because that sound isn’t coming from the stone charm on his dash, that sound is right _inside_ his head.

"Neat trick," Sam says, and Dean can hear a slight quaver in his voice that means he’s unnerved by this too.

"Thanks," Cas says lightly, "I think I'm really starting to get the hang of this. You’ve got a straight shot for two blocks, then go right.”

 

_It was pretty obvious to anyone who spent more than five minutes with him that Cas wasn't completely human. Suspicious basket-on-the-doorstep origin story aside, his clothes were always perfectly pressed and never oil-stained, he never caught so much as a cold and he could drink all night and never be hungover the next morning. There was something about the way he looked at you that suggested he already knew all your secrets. He also had never had a fistfight with Sam Winchester, which would be an impossible feat for any normal human being, especially given how long they'd known each other, and the fact that they were raised as brothers._

_The thing was, if you gave birth to an angel you were supposed to immediately turn it over the government. That Cas served cheap-ass food in a greasy diner as opposed to being enrolled in some kind of fancy police academy was actually a crime. The city's police force was as feared as it was because of this supernatural advantage; the majority of its officers were angels. Humans like Dean were brought in to do the less important work, or to go undercover, since angels could never really fully blend in. Some poor woman - rumour had it only_ virgins _ever gave birth to angels - hadn't wanted that fate for Cas. She had left him on John Winchester's doorstep, probably after seeing him working with his own son in the garage. And John had broken the law to keep him._

_Angels aren't all that different from people - until they hit puberty. They're a bit uncanny, a bit too good for their own good, and their natural cleanliness tends to set them apart from other children, in particular. But other than that, they're mostly like people until they begin their transformations in their twenties. When they first met, Cas had just turned twenty five._

 

Up ahead, Angels throw down road spikes, as if they think that will do anything against magically enhanced tires. Dean barely even feels it when he drives right over them, leaving a van full of frowning but perfectly pressed Angels in their dust. For the first time, Dean thinks they might actually be able to pull this off, casualty-free.

 

_A group of Demons killed Ash over the pink slips to his piece-of-crap minivan, and Sam went on a rampage for it. Sometime before that Dean had revealed his true identity - to save Gordon, of all people - but Dean doesn't like to think about that. He doesn't like to remember the look on Sam's face, on Cas' as he'd identified himself as Officer Campbell when calling for an Angelic escort to take the mortally wounded Gordon to the hospital. He actively avoids thinking about the way Sam had turned away from him without hesitation, and how Cas had only needed to be asked once before he followed. In any case, the revenge missions became a bit of a pattern. Years later Dean was still working for the Angels when a smuggler named Azazel killed Jess._

 

Sam and Dean have done car chases before. Heck, it feels almost routine by now. Dean imagines he can hear Sam's thoughts sometimes, though neither of them have any magical heritage. Sam is like the car Dean's driven for years - familiar, dependable, perfectly responsive to him. They've spent most of their friendship on opposing sides of somebody's war, but they've always felt like partners. Still, there's something different about this chase. There's a new kind of thrill in the contents of the vault they're dragging behind them - ten million dollars and a few thousand captive souls in curseboxes, to boot - but there’s also something else at stake this time. Every other chase they'd had together was about revenge. They'd avenged Ash's death, and Jess'. But this time they aren't just reacting to a loss, they're actually trying to create something new. And that feels...well, pretty damn good.

 

 _Dean expected Sam to come to Jess’ funeral; he would have bet his life on it. It had been five years since they’d seen each other - since Sam had turned his back on_ Officer _Dean Campbell - but this much Dean knew wouldn’t change. On the run or not, Dean knew Sam would get his ass to that cemetery. Still in the employ of the Angels - though on pretty much permanent probation - Dean stood a respectful distance away from the ceremony, chunk of quartz in his ear to radio back to headquarters if he caught sight of his former friend. Truth be told he wasn’t sure what he would do if he did see Sam - arrest him? warn him? hug him? - but it felt important that_ he _be the cop to do it. Dean practically snarled at any other Angel who tried to volunteer for this mission. Mostly they just shrugged and walked away, dispassionate as always._

_Dean looked across the cemetery at Cas, standing by the fresh grave, and wondered, not for the first time, whether it was nature or nurture that bred the angels on the force, whether their stoicism was an inherent part of who they are, or a consequence of the fancy police academy. Cas’ head was bowed, but his face was free of tears. No answers there._

_Dean was anything but dispassionate, especially because it was his fault - indirectly - that Jess was dead. Not that Sam ever needed to know that piece of information. They had been working together to clear Sam’s record; Jess knew how dangerous being his informant was, and she signed up willingly. Dean told himself every day not to feel guilty, but he hadn’t had much success yet._

_It turned out the funeral was a waste of time anyway; Sam never showed up. Dean did imagine he felt the prickle of someone’s stare against the back of his neck, but when he looked over his shoulder there was only a solitary oil rig, dark shape working away against the bright morning sky._

 

Two more cop cars pull out of an alley. Though he tries to dodge them, one of the cars manages to graze the side of the Impala, smearing at least one of his protection charms beyond any use. Dean feels his engine shudder.

“Fuck,” he says. “They got me. Paralyzing charm.”

“Damn it,” Sam answers, his voice ringing through the stone on the dash. “Can you shake it off?”

Dean tries, but the charm is surprisingly strong. To remove it Dean would need sage, rosemary and at least ten minutes with his hands off the steering wheel. “No can do,” he says. Though he keeps his foot on the accelerator, his car begins to slow down against his will, forcing Sam to slow down too.

“Problem?” Cas asks inside his head.

“You might say that,” Dean thinks. He wonders if there’s any way for him to detach himself from the vault, to let Sam go on without him. He tells himself he wants that because he can’t have Cas left alone.

Moments later, there is a spectacular crashing sound from behind him. Sneaking a glance in his rearview mirror, Dean sees the car that had been tailing him - the one that had cursed him - crushed under an improbably large oak tree.

“I just carved you a ten-second window,” Cas says, breathing heavily as if the display of magic has exhausted him. “Make it count.”

 

_His Angel colleagues weren’t ready to accept that they had missed their chance at the infamous Sam Winchester, either. Which is why, when Dean returned to the office later that afternoon, Cas was sitting in one of the glass interview rooms._

_Dean’s stomach sunk at the sight. Angel HQ was quite literally the worst place in the world for Cas to be; it was the reason the family worked so hard to keep him on the sidelines, where he was less likely to get arrested. Dean knew, from Jess, that Cas hadn’t hit puberty yet. No wings, no teleportation, no particularly obvious superpowers yet. But that didn’t necessarily mean the other angels wouldn’t recognize one of their own kind. Or, what if Cas suddenly sprouted wings, right there in the office? Dean was a little fuzzy on how angel puberty actually worked, but he knew Cas was pushing thirty, and due for the change any day._

_Dean snagged a phone off the nearest empty desk, pushing a few numbers. “Yeah, can you tell Rachel I need her down in evidence ASAP?”_

_A minute later, the Angel inside Cas’ interview room glanced down at the rune on her wrist, then left the room, locking it behind her. Dean had no trouble unlocking it with his own key card._

_Cas’ stare was the same, but so much else had changed since they last saw each other. His white dress shirt was wrinkled, and there was a stain on its collar. He scowled unattractively when Dean entered the room. And then he spoke._

_“Why am I not surprised it’s you? I don’t know where my fucking brother is, so you and your feathery buddies can leave me the fuck alone.” As he spoke, a tiny fleck of spittle flew out of his mouth and landed on the back of Dean’s hand._

_Cas was the opposite of the composed, gentle man Dean had known. Could it be that he was fully human now? Maybe in order to transform angels needed to be among their own kind. Maybe there was some kind of ritual they needed to do. By avoiding the academy, had Cas missed his chance? In trying to protect him, had Sam and Dean and the rest of the group only really held him back?_

_That particular group of worries was set to rest the moment Dean successfully escorted Cas outside._

_“Thanks for springing me,” Cas said, voice lower than it had been inside, lower than Dean had ever heard it. He straightened his posture, and the wrinkles seemed to disappear from his shirt. Dean couldn’t find the stain on his collar anymore._

_Dean exhaled a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “I thought you were human,” he said._

_“You’re not the only one who knows how to go undercover,” Cas answered, tiny smile playing at his lips._

_“Have coffee with me,” Dean blurted out, encouraged, but Cas just shook his head._

_“We play on different sides, remember?”_

_“You know they’re gonna capture Sam, maybe worse,” Dean said, even as Cas turned to walk away. “I don’t want you getting tangled up in this, so stay away from him.”_

_“That’s what you have to say to me after five years?” Cas asked, voice still eerily calm. “All of a sudden you care what happens to me. Just me.”_

_Dean let that last remark slide. “What I did to you was wrong,” he admitted. “I’m sorry. I lied to you. I lied to Sam. That’s what I do best; that’s why the Angels recruited me.”_

_“Well maybe you’re lying to yourself,” Cas said, gaze boring into Dean’s soul. “Maybe you’re not the good guy pretending to be a bad guy. Maybe you’re the bad guy pretending to be the good guy. You ever think about that?”_

_“Every day,” Dean answered._

 

They make good use of the window Cas cleared for them while the Angels struggle to find a way around the massive fallen tree. Far ahead of them, Dean can see the Bridge that marks the border of the city, the line beyond which the cops lose their jurisdiction, and their authority to use magic.

“There’s a sight for sore eyes,” Sam says through the communication charm, echoing Dean’s sentiments exactly. If they can get across that bridge they may have a fighting chance to escape.

Dean is just beginning to get his hopes up when the centre panel of the bridge starts to move, rising slowly from its horizontal position to a gradual slope on each side. Dean knows what lies below: a rushing river lined by jagged rocks. Dean’s stomach sinks; the hope rising in his chest dissipates.

“Cas?” he says, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. “Little help?”

There’s an ominous pause, and then he answers, doing little to keep the panic rising in his own voice hidden. “I can’t,” he says. “I’m out of juice from that last one.”

 

_So for awhile Dean tried to play both sides of the fence. He tried to help bring Jess' murderers to justice without actually breaking the law; he tried to keep Sam, Cas and his job. But ever since that first time he brought Cas into his bed, since he handed that first set of keys to Sam as the sirens approached, he had known this choice was coming. Sam decided to go on a suicide mission to avenge his dead girlfriend, and Dean, abandoning all sense of self-preservation - not to mention his police training - decided to back him up._

_Cas saw through them both, of course. Came home from buying groceries to find them in the garage, tracing chalk symbols on the Impala's hood and knew instantly that they were going for it, knowing full well they probably wouldn't come back. Dean followed Cas into the kitchen and pressed him against the counter, making him drop his groceries. Cas' eyes were wet with tears, but he blinked them back before they could escape his eyelashes. Dean had never see him cry before._

_"You don't need to go. I can't lose both of you," he said._

_"I don't have a choice," Dean answered. Sam was like gravity, and they had always fallen together, whether Dean wanted to or not. One day Cas would have wings, so maybe gravity didn't apply to him the same way._

_"I hate you," Cas gasped, losing all of his angelic grace for just a moment._

_Dean just kissed him, pressing him harder against the ceramic countertop, digging his fingers into Cas' hips, under the hem of his linen shirt, struggling with the button of his jeans before shoving one hand down the front. Cas buried his face in Dean's shoulder, and it was hard to tell whether he was gasping in pleasure, or sobbing._

_"Hey Campbell, take it upstairs. You can't detail a car with the hood down," Sam said from the doorway, and they both jumped. Cas pushed Dean gently away, and then caught his hand and pulled him from the room, making a beeline for the stairs. His eyes were dry._

_"Mind your own business, big brother," he said. There was laughter in his voice, masking the sadness. "It's the end of the world, and we'll fuck in the kitchen if we want."_

 

They’re not moving fast enough, burdened by the weight of the vault. By the time they reach the gap the bridge will have articulated too far; it will be too wide for them to jump.

“We’re not going to make it,” Dean says.

“You’re right, we aren’t,” Sam answers. “You are.” 

 

_The demon smuggler who’d killed Jess was named Azazel, and they had him. They posed as smugglers themselves, and had no trouble tracking him down. Dean arrested his boss, determined to bring Lucifer to justice the proper way, to see him back in the Cage. He wasn’t stupid enough to think that Sam would be content with anything less than Azazel’s body salted and burned, though._

_Dean handcuffed Lucifer with enchanted cuffs, then set off for Angel headquarters, Azazel close behind. Sam brought up the rear. It was the longest race of Dean’s life, and it didn’t end so hot._

_The Impala burst out of the city’s cave system, spinning out of control through the air, and Azazel’s truck collided with her. She flipped three times before finally coming to a halt, and by the time Dean dragged himself out from under her mangled frame, Azazel had a gun pointed at his head._

_And then a crash. Sam’s car emerged from the tunnels, accelerating faster than Dean thought possible. The car surged forward into a wheelie, and Dean had the presence of mind to grab Azazel by the leg and swing him into its path, before rolling out of the way himself._

_Dean lay bleeding in the dirt and watched Sam get out of his car and inspect Azazel’s body, crushed between Dean’s car and Sam’s. He seemed mesmerized for a few moments, and then Dean coughed, and Sam snapped out of it._

_“Let me see,” Sam said, propping Dean up against one of the cars. He kept one hand on Dean’s knee, and unbuttoned his shirt partway with the other. His touch seemed to burn Dean’s skin. “You’ll be all right,” he finally announced, but he didn’t move away. Dean heard sirens approaching. Trust the Angels to arrive when the battle had already been won._

_“You gotta get out of here,” Dean said, panting through the pain._

_Sam held Dean’s gaze for a long moment. “I’m not running anymore,” he said, uncharacteristically softly. And then Sam kissed him._

_Through the blood running down his face, and the heat and the pain, the kiss seemed to last forever. When Dean finally pulled away to take a breath, he was panting even harder, and feeling sick with lust, and guilt and panic._

_“You know what I was just thinking?” he asked._

_“Yeah?”_

_“You know I would’ve won that last race if you didn’t cheat.”_

_Sam looked away, smiling, but he didn’t sound happy exactly. “You hit your head hard,” he said fondly. “Maybe we both did.” They haven’t talked about it since._

 

“What are you talking about?” Dean says, struggling to keep his focus. Between the rapidly rising bridge in front of them, and the mass of Angels behind, Dean’s sure he’s misheard.

“Just let the vault go. Get out of there,” Cas’ voice is deep and full of steel, calling on some kind of angelic authority Dean has never heard from him before.

“You’re in charge now, Dean,” Sam says, voice eerily calm.

Before he can finish Dean interrupts, “I’m not leaving you. Stick with the plan!”

“It was always the plan,” Sam answers. “Take care of Cas.”

“Sam, Sam you listen to me now, okay?,” Cas says, voice deeper than Dean thought it could go. “You cut loose _right now._ ”

The cord attaching Dean’s Impala to the vault snaps.

Freed from its ballast, Dean’s car shoots forward, toward the bridge, and Dean watches in his rearview mirror as Sam’s Charger grinds into a spin, turning to face the oncoming horde of Angel cars.

 

_He and Cas broke Sam out of prison, and Dean chose a permanent side. Three weeks ago they'd been running away from some low-life criminals desperate to get some microchip or whatever the fuck back. They'd stolen it by accident, to be honest; they were never much interested in new technology, just in it for the cars. But between the Demons and some Angel specialist named Uriel the feds had called in, it had been a pretty damn unpleasant day. Dean had never met Uriel but he'd heard stories back when he was on the force, and he had a feeling the next few months weren't going to be pretty._

_They had gotten away, somehow, and were just climbing out of a particularly gross sewer when Sam made the announcement._

_"They'll be looking for the three of us together. We should split up."_

_"No," Cas said, still leaning on Dean's shoulder._

_"He's right," Dean insisted. "For a few days at least. I'll stick with Cas," he said in Sam's direction. "You lead them off." Sam was nodding before Dean could finish his sentence._

_"I said no," Cas repeated, much louder this time, and started unbuttoning his - miraculously clean - shirt._

_"What - " Dean began, but then Cas turned around and shrugged his shirt off his shoulders, and he fell silent. Emerging from Cas' pale, bare shoulders were two small, smooth white nubs, like polished stone._

_"They're wings," Cas said. "Or the beginnings of them, anyway. I'm finally transforming."_

_"You're kidding me," Dean said with a grin, pulling Cas into a kiss._

_Cas laughed into his mouth. "I know you thought I'd never make it. So can we stay together now, please? We've lost enough people already."_

_Dean squeezed Cas' hand, hoping to communicate some kind of wordless reassurance. He didn't exactly know the proper way to respond when your angel boyfriend finally started to sprout his wings, but he knew Cas would need all the protection he could get. Between the wings and his powers, there was no way he was going to be able to stay under the radar anymore._

_“Sam?" Cas said, and Dean saw Sam hesitate at first, before stepping forward and pulling them both into a hug. Dean wasn't exactly small, but Sam could still tuck one of them under each arm. Dean thought, for a second, that he felt Sam's lips ghost over the back of his neck._

_"My little brother's finally growing," he said, without the slightest touch of sarcasm. “And we’re gonna make sure he reaches his full wingspan.”_

 

Dean sees a burst of blue flames spit out of the Charger’s tailpipe. Sam released the holy water into the car’s hellfire engine, causing a reaction strong enough to propel his car forward from a dead stop. Sam accelerates, moving toward the regimented line of cop cars and dragging the vault all on his own.

Dean knows he should turn his eyes back to the road, to the straightaway, ramp, and perilous jump that could buy him his freedom. Sam is making this sacrifice for him, and he shouldn’t waste it. But Dean can’t bring himself to look away, to leave Sam so utterly alone.

Sam uses the heavy vault as a makeshift battering ram, swerving from side to side so that it takes out the Angel cars in his path. He smashes one and sends another spinning through the barrier and over the edge of the bridge before the Angels get desperate and call in back-up.

Two unmarked black motorcycles pull out of the fray as if from nowhere, moving unnaturally quickly. One of the drivers raises a gloved hand in the air. Dean watches, stunned, as a ball of orange fire forms in the magician’s palm, growing to the size of an elephant before it zooms past the vault, directly toward Sam's Charger.

Dean winces when the flames envelope the car, but to his surprise there’s no explosion. Instead, the car emerges from the fire unscathed, whipping the vault behind it and forcing both magicians to leap from their motorcycles or be beheaded by the cord. Dean notices many of the Charger’s chalk sigils have been wiped away; Sam’s protection charms are good, but they’re not unlimited.

It’s something like a miracle, and Dean is just beginning to relax, to turn his eyes back to his own shortening stretch of road, when he sees it. A cop car pulls up to Sam’s right, and he has to swerve to avoid it. He goes too far, though, and the vault hurtles over the edge of the bridge, dragging Sam’s Charger with a sickening squeal.

It sails through the air, and Dean doesn’t wait to see if Sam jumps out in time.

 

_Sam, Dean and Cas sat around the three-legged table in the motel room they were paying for by the night. Boxes of takeout lay scattered between them. Sam and Dean each held a fork, but Cas favoured chopsticks._

_“Hey,” Cas said, after Dean took his first bite. “You reached first, you say grace.”_

_Dean hesitated. If it were just him and Sam, he probably could have gotten away with it. But Cas, for reasons Dean had never understood, took religion seriously. Dean didn’t have much faith in any kind of higher power, himself. He looked over at Sam for help, caught off guard but desperate not to let Cas down. Sam smirked back, an amused, knowing smile that made Dean’s stomach twist in that way he was scared to examine too closely._

_“Money will come and go,” Sam said, looking around the dirty motel room. “We all know that. The most important thing in life will always be the people in this room., my family. Right here, right now. I’m thankful for that.”_

_Cas nodded his approval of Sam’s prayer, then reached for one of the greasy food cartons._

_“Pass me a beer, Campbell,” Sam said._

_“Sure,” Dean replied, swallowing hard against the lump forming in his throat. He reached behind him into the cooler, then passed a cold bottle across the table._

 

An Angel stands in front of Sam, his jacket not even wrinkled in the chase. He holds his gun like it’s nothing, like killing someone is commonplace. And maybe, for him, it is. His face is expressionless, the same blank stoicism his brothers and sisters - all except for Cas - always wear.

Sam, unarmed, braces himself for the shot.

Dean shoots the Angel in the chest. The blood stains his coat, and Dean might be a little hysterical, but he thinks that’s pretty funny.

Of course he doesn’t die, but it’s a distraction.

“Thought I told you to go on,” Sam says, as they both scramble back into Dean’s Impala.

Dean leans over Sam to reach into the glove compartment, scrambling for two fresh sticks of white chalk. “Yeah, I had to make a call,” he answers. He scratches defensive Enochian symbols onto the roof of the car, and beside him he knows Sam is doing the same. Buying them time.

“What now, wiseguy?” Sam says, glancing over from his work. “We don’t exactly have anywhere to run.”

“Running isn’t freedom, anyway. Isn’t that right?” Dean says with a laugh. In front of them, the bridge is too far open for them to jump, even in the Impala. Behind them, the rest of the police force is rapidly catching up. “I figure our running days are over.”

“Damn it,” Sam says, slamming both palms against the dash. “We got so fucking close.” Dean can see a slight shimmer in the air at the centre of the open bridge, marking the city’s border. The sirens are deafening, but Dean refuses to look behind him. Instead, he looks at Sam who looks back at him.

“It was nice knowing you, Campbell,” Sam says, without breaking eye contact.

“You too, Winchester,” Dean answers. He hears a car door slam. The Angels have arrived.

Sam flinches, tiny crack in his armor showing. “It’s okay, I’m here, I’m here,” Dean says without thinking, “I’m not going to leave you.” And then leans over the gear shift to kiss him.

The kiss is wet and desperate and inelegant, all spit and sweat and teeth. It’s a violent brutal thing, but in the tiny noise Sam makes in the back of his throat Dean detects a note of something gentler underneath. It makes Dean’s heart swell, his breathing stop and his cock harden. It is, appropriately, a kiss worth dying for. Dean twists his fingers through Sam’s hair and waits for the cops to finish them both off.

“Not to interrupt,” Cas says from the back seat, “but you two looked like you could use some rescuing.”

 

_Sam and Dean stood on the balcony of yet another motel in the series of low-budget dives they’d moved between to stay off of Uriel’s radar. Inside, Cas was sleeping, drained from practising his teleportation by vanishing from one spot and appearing across the room. Small-scale magic, but he was improving. He could only train for a hour at a time, though, before his abilities flickered out like a candle flame._

_“He’s doing well,” Sam said, taking a long sip from his beer._

_“Yeah,” Dean agreed, taking his own, shorter sip. “It’s all happening pretty quickly.” Cas had to sleep on his stomach by then, wings already half-formed on his back and frequently getting in his way. Some mornings Dean woke up covered in feathers._

_“You don’t sound too happy about that,” Sam said._

_“It’s just all happening so fast,” Dean tried to explain. “He can barely hide his wings under that trench coat anymore. We can’t keep running, Sam. We’ll run out of places to hide.”_

_They both turned to look into the tiny motel room, where Cas was asleep on the couch, his wings curled up awkwardly over his shoulders._

_“We gotta get out,” Dean continued. He meant out of running cars, racing, out of the whole damn city. “We gotta get out now.”_

_“You’re right,” Sam said after a beat. “Here’s how we’re gonna do it. We’re gonna do one last job, a final score. We’re gonna take all of Zachariah’s money, every dime of it. And disappear. Forever.”_

 

“Holy shit,” Sam says, as he climbs out of the car, and Dean understands the sentiment. On the ground beside the car and scattered across the bridge are the bodies of at least twenty dead Angels, their wings evaporated, with only black scorch marks on the pavement left behind.

“Only an Angel can kill an Angel,” Cas says, voice a strange combination of pride and grief. His wings unfurl proudly as he climbs out of the car. “Come on, let’s go.”

“Go where?” Dean asks, but he offers Cas the keys to the Impala as he says it, as a sign of trust and also maybe an apology for where his mouth has just been.

Cas smirks, ad Dean wonders if he can read his mind or something. “Leave the car. We don’t need it.”

“Leave the car?” Cas sets off down the road, striding toward the still-raised Bridge, Sam at his heels, but Dean falls behind for a moment. “Leave _my_ car?”

“I’ll get it for you,” Cas calls over his shoulder. “Don’t you trust me?” And something about the new confidence in Cas’ voice tells Dean that he does, unconditionally.

Dean quickens his stride until he catches up to them, keeping Cas between his own body and Sam’s. “What are we doing?” Sam asks, and Dean follows his gaze up the sleep slope of the bridge to the shimmering city border in the sky. He hears sirens in the distance.

“Running,” Cas answers. “One last time.”

He catches hold of each of their arms, dragging both men with him as he sprints forward, up the steep incline of the bridge. It takes Dean only a second to match his pace, his feet pounding against the pavement and lungs already aching. Across Cas to his left, Dean can hear Sam breathing, can see Cas tighten his grip around his adoptive brother’s wrist. As they near the top of the incline, feet slipping and sliding on the smooth surface, Castiel links his fingers with Dean’s and squeezes.

“Ready?” Cas asks.

“For what?” Sam pants, short of breath. Dean wants to laugh, but it comes out more like a wheeze.

“Three...two...one,” Cas counts, as his wings stretch out behind him, and then, blue water and jagged rocks below, they jump over the edge and into the shimmering air.

 

Epilogue

The opposite side of the bridge is perfectly silent. The road stretches out as far as Dean can see, until it meets the horizon. The trees on either side of the road are the same kind that grow in the city, somehow.

Sam sits down hard on the pavement, and Dean does the same, profoundly grateful for the solid ground. Cas stays on his feet, but bends over and puts his head between his knees. His wings curl in against his back.

“You okay?” Sam asks. “How’d you know your magic would still work outside the city?”

“I didn’t.” Cas answers, breathing hard. “Call it an educated guess.”

“What?” Dean gasps. “You mean we could’ve been jumping to our deaths right then?”

“You can be pissed if you want,” Cas says. “But I wasn’t the one caught kissing my boyfriend’s brother.” There’s no spite, no anger in his voice. “Come on lovebirds, we’ve got things to do.”

“What things?” Sam says. “We lost the vault, so we don’t exactly have a lot of resources to work with.”

Dean’s stomach sinks. He’d been so concerned about Sam he hadn’t even thought about the cash they’d lost to the river. This whole job had been pointless after all.

“Yeah,” Cas says, unable to keep the smugness out of his voice. “It would be a real shame to lose all that money. It’s a good thing someone in this family has magic powers they could use to shrink a giant vault down to a more manageable size, then replace it with a fake in the blink of an eye.”

As Sam and Dean gape, Cas pulls a tiny, square object out of his jeans’ pocket. He tosses the object in the air, where it gleams in the light before he catches it again. “You really thought I got all tired out from knocking down one little tree?”

“ _That’s_ the vault,” Dean says. “There’s ten million dollars in there?”

“And a few thousand souls, though I don’t think I wanna mess with those. I’ve got enough power to get used to already.” Cas practically bounces up and down with excitement. So much for stoicism.

Dean falls back, lets Cas take the lead down the road and into the fading afternoon light. He knows without looking that Sam has fallen into step with him.

“This is the happiest I’ve ever seen my brother,” he says.

“That’s ‘cause we’re free,” Dean answers. They walk in silence for another few moments, watching Cas flexing his wings a few paces in the lead, not looking over his shoulder because he knows they’ll follow him.

“You know I want another shot,” Dean says finally. “When Cas gets my car back.”

Sam stops in his tracks and looks at Dean. “Yeah?” he asks, and Dean knows they’re not talking about a race, not really.

“Yeah,” he answers, voice cocky as he can manage. “No wagers, nobody else, just you and me, once and for all.”

“Huh,” Sam says, thoughtful. “You sure you can handle the disappointment?”

“Are you?” Dean answers.

Sam smirks. “All right Campbell, let’s see what you got.”


End file.
